


Loving Backwards

by ClaraxBarton



Series: Amerihawk Week [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1940s, AmeriHawk, Amerihawk Week, Blind Date, M/M, meet cute, post-serum Steve, sweater vests are sexy AF, time-travel, virgin!steve, wool trousers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 15:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16221914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: When Clint is forced to go back in time to 1942, he learns quite a bit more about Captain America than his mission briefing prepared him for.For Amerihawk Week on tumblr!!!





	Loving Backwards

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a million thanks to Ro for beta reading.  
> And a million thanks to CB for hand holding me through this and also for making FUCKING AMAZING ART.

The thing about time-travel, the thing that  _ no one had bothered to tell him _ when Clint had been unfairly and viciously forced into taking this mission, was that it made you nauseated.

 

It was, Clint guessed, something to do with the space-time continuum and matter rearranging itself to accommodate  _ his _ matter in its current form, when, seventy years ago, his matter hadn’t been in this form. Or something like that. Probably. He wasn’t a scientist. Not like Stark or Bruce, the ones with enough PhDs to build a fucking fort between them. No. He was just the guy who shot arrows and took on the tracksuit mafia. So, clearly, the  _ perfect _ choice to send back to 1942.

 

I mean, duh, right? Send the guy who had never spent more than a single semester in a school before moving or getting kicked out or  _ running away to join the circus _ . Clint could read, obviously, because he was a stubborn asshole and had taught himself to read even before his abusive father got into the car-accident that killed both him and Clint’s mother. But that didn’t mean he sat around reading history textbooks for… fun, or even as self-flagellation. He didn’t hate himself  _ that _ much.

 

Apparently, none of that mattered. Not when Steve Rogers flat-out refused to go - because he had apparently  _ been there _ in 1942. And not Tony, who looked too much like his dad, and also had way too much affection for modern technology to be able to politely function in a world where the  _ radio _ was seen as cool. And not Bruce, who used the excuse of ‘I could go green’, because he fucking used that excuse every time he didn’t want to go on a mission because he sucked. And not Bucky, who was, in addition to having Steve’s same excuse  _ kind of _ , still technically recovering from HYDRA, and while he was good to go on normal missions, had gone pale at the mere thought of being sent back to 1942. Which left Wanda, Nat, Vision, Pietro, Sam and Clint. Sam called ‘not it’, because he didn’t care to experience historical racism when there was plenty to go around in 2019, thanks very much. Vision probably would have  _ loved _ to go, but they all agreed that no, no, that was bad. Same with Pietro because, seriously, who thought that would be a good idea? 

 

Between Nat, Wanda and Clint, it was eventually decided - over Clint’s complaints and, in his mind, super-valid concerns - that he should go. Because sexism, still alive and well in 2019, even more alive and well in 1942.

 

So. Fine. 1942. Hooray. Clint got the very, extremely, let’s not kid ourselves not at  _ all _ , honor of going back in time to try to impersonate an SSR spy, convince the newly-minted Captain America that he should  _ help _ Clint meet with a US Senator during one of his war bond-dance hall spectacles, and, if all went well, assassinate the senator because, according to Dr. Strange, killing that senator was the only way to avoid the massive international finance crisis that had started in December of 2018 and built to such a monolithic pan-continental depression that there were breadlines -actual, legitimate  _ breadlines _ \- in cities from Brooklyn to Kandahar. 

 

Time-travel assassination. Fine. Clint could do that. It was, if he was honest with himself, actually kind of cool. And no one  _ else _ on the team had done that. Yet. So. In your face, everyone else. 

 

In addition to the ‘oh, you’re going to feel like someone is trying to force your guts up your throat’ feeling of the actual traveling part of the time-travel, there was the issue of what to  _ wear _ .

 

Tony, at least, did Clint a solid and made him a new pair of flesh-toned inner ear aids, but then Clint was left to the combined mercy of Bucky and Steve. They took him  _ shopping _ . 

 

An afternoon spent with the two men - best friends since childhood, because, Clint was convinced, if they hadn’t been best friends, they absolutely one-hundred percent would have murdered the shit out of each other because they were both  _ assholes _ \- was… not Clint’s idea of a good time.

 

Yeah, sure, for all of fifteen minutes, it was fun to watch them argue about which pair of khakis Clint should get,  fun to hear Bucky tell Steve that Clint’s ass would look better in the wool trousers and see Steve actually blush, as if Clint’s ass had anything to do with the mission, as if Steve cared about the state of Clint’s ass in any way at all. But then it got old, and itchy, because they made him try on the clothes, and Steve eventually gave into Bucky’s insistence on wool trousers, and  _ Jesus Fuck, _ why did people torture themselves with wool pants? Later, when Bruce was giving Clint an anti-inflammatory and some kind of itch-relief cream, Clint learned that he was allergic to wool. Awesome. Great mission. 

 

It took three hours and way too many stores before Bucky and Steve finally agreed on Clint’s ensemble - and neither man seemed to give a flying fuck that their living dress-up doll  _ hated _ his clothes.

 

Aside from the torture pants that Clint had to wear at his fucking belly-button - Bucky had demonstrated by very, very firmly yanking them up to the proper waist height - they put him in a long-sleeved dress shirt made out of some kind of stiff, slightly-textured blue fabric that had both Bucky and Steve nodding in pleased agreement. The shirt had to be tucked in, they both kept repeating over and over again, as if Clint only knew how to dress himself in tac gear, t-shirts, and flannel shirts. As if he had never tucked in his shirt before. Bucky showed him how to do it so it wasn’t weirdly bunchy over his ass. Bucky was  _ really _ concerned with Clint’s ass, and if Clint hadn’t seen, with his own two tortured eyes, Bucky going down on Nat just the night before, Clint would be wondering about Bucky’s intentions towards his ass. 

 

Then came the tie. A fucking tie.

 

And, adding insult to already monumental injury, a button-up sweater vest. Also made of wool. Because apparently Clint might  _ freeze to death _ in the chilly summer fucking weather of 1942.

 

The overall look had Bucky smirking, and Steve just… staring. And Clint glaring.

 

It passed muster, though, and after Nat gave him a wallet full of cash printed in the ‘20s and ‘30s, and Tony gave him some handy gadgets that looked like an era-appropriate switch-blade, but was actually a super-cool multi-tool that even had a plasma cutter on it, a Colt M1911 .45 with an insanely comfortably modified grip, and a little aluminum tin of… condoms that was… actually full of rubber condoms. Tony had just grinned and said  _ safety first _ before hustling Clint towards the time-travel portal thing that he and Dr. Strange had rigged together.

 

Steve had stopped Clint right before he was about to step through.

 

And Clint, bless his hopeful little heart, had thought it was because maybe the mission was being scrubbed.

 

“Clint, I just wanted to tell you…” Steve trailed off, voice going low and his face going red. “I just… I’m glad it’s you. Going back. To me. For me. I mean- I’m just glad it’s you, okay? Remember that.”

 

Clint looked Steve over in confusion. Those words made next to no sense, as did Steve’s out-of-character mumbling.

 

He looked at the other assembled Avengers for any clues, but only Bucky seemed to be paying attention to them, and he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face that, in Clint’s unfortunately prolific experience, only meant bad, awful things. 

 

“I, uh, I’m glad too?” Clint offered, because he had to say  _ something _ with Steve looking at him like a hopeful puppy with a tennis ball in his mouth. Minus the open mouth, tennis ball, and drooling. And tail wagging. But the eyes. The eyes and the floppy hair.

 

Steve gave him a small, genuine smile, and then pulled Clint in for a hug.

 

“Thank you,” he whispered into Clint’s ear, the brush of his lips setting off a weird, funny little twist in Clint’s guts that he chose not to think about.

 

Well, he didn’t think about it much until he stepped into the portal and the funny little twist became a full-on  _ war _ with his intestines to  _ stay in his fucking body _ .

 

It felt like simultaneously forever and less than a second before Clint was falling out of - darkness? Light? Techno music? Silence? A drum circle? - and into a dimly-lit back alley in, hopefully, Wichita. It was  _ hot _ and damp and dark, and Clint was not alone.

 

There were two men in the alley, and Clint reached for the gun inside of his  _ sweater vest _ without thinking.

 

But then his brain caught up, and his eyes kindly informed him that the two men didn’t give a flying fuck that Clint had appeared out of thin air because the only thing they cared about was… fucking each other into the damp brick wall.

 

Which… cool. Clint had known, theoretically, that homosexual relationships had happened throughout history, had even known that Steve was bisexual - even before the full-page ad Tony took out in  _ The Times _ that proclaimed Captain America was queer, but Clint hadn’t really expected to see the evidence first-hand. And definitely not so close.

 

He edged past the men and towards a door that was propped open with a brick. It was - hopefully - a bar. A bar that Captain America was at, drinking alone, drowning out his irritation at being forced to sell war-bonds instead of  _ fight, _ which was just a whole mess of horrible irony.

 

Clint stepped into the bar and- 

 

And  _ what the fuck? _

 

Things that should have been covered in the mission brief:

 

  1. Wool pants, aka torture pants, are hot and itchy and awful.
  2. Time-travel sucks.
  3. He was meeting Captain America _at a gay bar_.



 

Because this was… not a straight bar. Not a normal bar. Not a-  _ Jesus Fucking Christ _ .

 

Clint had been to gay bars. Had, in fact, spent a huge part of the ‘90s going to a  _ lot _ of gay bars, because the only thing that kept him sane in between being a murderer for hire was fucking himself into a coma as frequently as possible.

 

But this…

 

This was not like any gay bar Clint had ever been to. 

 

No pride flags - which, sure, duh. No cool music, either. In fact,  _ no _ music. Just the sounds of a dozen muffled conversations and… not conversations as men sat in dark corners with each other and did things that probably should be confined to back alleys and bedrooms, and not public spaces, but…

 

The 1990s. Clint as a club kid. He couldn't judge. Really, really couldn’t judge.

 

Except, well, it was dark, and the air felt humid and smelled kind of moldy, and wasn’t this kind of thing still  _ illegal _ in 1942? Hell, Clint wasn’t sure that it wasn’t  _ still _ illegal in Wichita in 2019.

 

Clint scanned the bar, and thank fuck, it was actually a bar, because Clint really needed a drink now and- 

 

_ Jesus Fucking No Way In Hell Christ _ .

 

Sitting at the bar, trying his damnedest to look unimposing and perhaps invisible, was Captain America in all of his newly-serumed glory. Well, minus the striped pajamas. 

 

He looked, Clint had to guess, like everyone else in the bar - brown suit jacket,  _ tie _ , dress shirt, khaki pants. Those fucking khakis. 

 

But unlike everyone else, he was alone and looked like he wanted to stay that way. He was nursing a beer, his massive shoulders hunched in on himself as if he was trying to hide.

 

As Clint watched, a short, thin man with wavy dark hair and a broad smirk approached Steve and tried to chat him up.

 

Clint couldn’t see much - the bar was dark as hell - so he moved closer, sidling up to the bar himself on Steve’s other side and flagging down the bartender.

 

The bartender who had eyeliner so expertly applied he could have given Natasha tips.

 

“I’ll have whatever he’s having,” Clint gestured towards Steve.

 

The bartender shrugged and moved off to get Clint a beer.

 

And Clint shamelessly eavesdropped on Steve and his suitor.

 

For intel-gathering purposes.

 

“... guy like you could really wreck a tight ass like mine.”

 

Steve had been mid-sip, and he actually spewed his beer out. Onto the dark-haired guy.

 

Clint had to shove his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing.

 

Twinks. God love them. Same in the ‘40s as they were today. That was oddly comforting.

 

The dark-haired guy grimaced and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his beer-soaked face.

 

“I am so sorry,” Steve mumbled, reaching out and then stopping himself from actually touching the man.

 

“Yeah, me too.” The guy ambled off, shooting Steve one last disgusted look over his shoulder before he went in search of another target.

 

“Tough luck,” Clint murmured, keeping his voice low because he knew Steve, with his serum enhancements, could hear conversations two rooms over if he tried.

 

Steve turned, frown on his face that, as soon as he clapped eyes on Clint, melted into- 

 

_ Oh, no.  _

 

_ Oh, fuck me. No.  _

 

Steve had that same goddamn golden retriever look. Wide, pleading eyes. Still minus the tennis ball, but his mouth was slightly agape, and… he was blushing.

 

_ This cannot be real life. _

 

“Hi,” Steve managed, mouth forming into a soft, shy smile that did that weird, twisty thing to Clint’s guts again.

 

“Hi,” Clint replied, because he was a master of wit.

 

“I, uh, hi,” Steve said again, and Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Can I buy you a drink?”

 

The bartender chose that moment to arrive with Clint’s drink, making Clint wonder if he had been enjoying the show.

 

Clint smirked and lifted his beer to take a sip.

 

“Sure,” he said after licking a bit of the foam off his lip.

 

Steve followed the movement of his tongue with rapt attention. 

 

_ What the fuck? _

 

“I like your sweater vest,” Steve said, apropos of nothing, in what was either the weirdest possible lie to ever tell or the weirdest possible sweater vest fetish.

 

_ Oh, no. _

 

Clint realized, way too late, that he had been sent back in time on a blind fucking date with Captain America. Had, in fact, been sent  _ by _ Captain America.

 

“Thanks,” Clint managed. “A… friend picked it out.”

 

“A friend,” Steve repeated, shoulders slumping.

 

_ Oh, God. _

 

Fuck the Avengers. Fuck everyone for not giving him an actual mission briefing. Fuck- Who the fuck had been in charge of this mission, anyway?

 

Dr. Strange and Steve.

 

Fuck Dr. Strange. Clint had never liked him.

 

And fuck Steve, who Clint had  _ always _ liked and-

 

And Tony had given Clint a tin full of condoms.

 

Which seemed to have no practical purpose except for fucking.

 

Clint sighed, and felt his own shoulders slump.

 

“Not… that kind of friend,” he heard himself assure Steve. “Just a friend-friend.”

 

Steve’s smile was back, brighter and bigger and damn-near blinding, and there was that damn twisty sensation again.

 

“Friend-friends are good,” Steve said.

 

“Sure, except when I’m planning to murder them because they’re assholes,” Clint muttered.

 

Steve gave him a look, but Clint just shrugged and waved it off.

 

“So, you, uh, weren’t too keen on wrecking that guy’s ass?”

 

Steve Rogers turned a shade of red that was so alarming Clint wondered if he was going to have an aneurysm.

 

“I- I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, not  _ his. _ I mean, he… he looked fine? But I…” Steve trailed off miserably.

 

“Not your type?” Clint hazarded, because he wasn’t an idiot, and despite not getting any kind of useful briefing, he was putting things together real fucking quick all on his own, and could make a damned good guess as to what Steve’s type might be.

 

“No,” Steve agreed in relief. “Not my type.”

 

“So, what is your type?” Clint asked, because he wasn’t able to give 2019 Steve Rogers shit, and he wasn’t a good enough guy  _ not _ to give 1942 Steve Rogers shit in his stead.

 

“Ummm.” Again that alarming shade of red, and Steve took a large sip of his beer to avoid going into detail.

 

Clint smirked.

 

No way was he letting Steve off that easily. Steve, who had made him wear a fucking tie. 

 

He slid one hand over Steve’s hip and down his thigh.

 

Steve miraculously managed to swallow his beer, coughing loudly and still red-faced, but he didn’t shift away from Clint.

 

In fact, he turned towards him, so that Clint’s hand shifted more fully over his thick thigh, and when he moved his mouth away from the beer glass, he was biting his lower lip.

 

And  _ Jesus Fuck, _ that was insanely hot.

 

“I, I’ve never done anything like this before,” Steve said in a rush.

 

“What? Drink shitty beer?”

 

“No. Done plenty of that.” Steve looked down at Clint’s hand, and lifted his own left hand to put it over Clint’s. 

 

Clint could feel the slight tremor in Steve’s hand when their skin touched. 

 

And he could feel that goddamn twisty thing in his guts again.

 

“This,” Steve clarified.

 

“Oh.”

 

Clint was going to murder every single Avenger. Even Thor. All of them. From here on out, he and Kate would just… be the Hawkeyes. They would save the world. Because fuck every single fucker who had conspired in any way to get him sent back in time on a blind fucking date with Steve Rogers, Captain America, blushing fucking virgin.

 

Clint turned his hand under Steve’s and gave it a comforting squeeze.

 

“Don’t worry,” he assured Steve with a wink and a smirk, “I’ve done this plenty of times. Just never with anyone as pretty as you.”

 

And Steve’s answering smile was…

 

Wow.

 

That was enough to have Clint ready to jump out of airplanes without a parachute.

 

Okay. He’d murder everyone else on the Avengers except for Steve.

 

But he was going to tie Steve - future Steve - to a bed and bang him like a screen door in a hurricane when he got back. 

 

Past Steve, Clint figured, needed to properly work his way up to that point.

 

And… no time like the present to get started.

 

“C’mon,” Clint said, and tugged Steve to his feet. “Let’s get out of here and get to know each other better.”

 

“Oh.  _ Oh _ . I’m Steve.”

 

Clint grinned.

 

“Nice to meet ya, Steve. I’m Clint.”

 

-o-

  
  
  
  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] Time Travel... Blind Date?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231361) by [Kangofu_CB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB)




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